Cooperative Learning in Special Education

Cooperative Learning
Kapil kumar
M.ED(H.I)

Content
1. Introduction
2. Defination
3. History
4. Types
5. Elements
6. Techniques
7. Benefits
8. Advantages and Disadvantages
9. Review of Literature.

Introduction
 Cooperative Learning can be defined as collaboration in
an instructional setting either between or among
members of small groups that achieves learning
outcomes, including ability to remember and utilize what
is learned
 Students work together in small groups and learn
through interaction with each other while the teacher
coaches the process.
 Cooperative Learning is part of a group of
teaching/learning techniques where students interact with
each other to acquire and practice the elements of a
subject matter and to meet common learning goals.

DEFINITION
• Cooperative learning involves students working
together in small groups to accomplish shared goals.
(Gillies, R., 2007)
• Successful cooperative learning tasks as
intellectually demanding, creative, open-ended, and
involve higher order thinking tasks.
(Ross and Smyth., 1995)

History
• Prior to World War II, social theorists such as
Allport, Watson, Shaw, and Mead began
establishing cooperative learning theory after
finding that group work was more effective and
efficient in quantity, quality, and overall
productivity when compared to working alone.
• However, it wasn’t until 1937 when researchers
May and Doob found that people who cooperate
and work together to achieve shared goals, were
more successful in attaining outcomes, than
those who strived independently to complete the
same goals

TYPES OF COOPERATIVE
LEARNING
Formal cooperative learning
Informal cooperative learning
Group based learning

Types
Formal cooperative learning is structured,
facilitated, and monitored by the educator over
time and is used to achieve group goals in task
work (e.g. completing a unit).
Any course material or assignment can be
adapted to this type of learning, and groups can
vary from 2-6 people with discussions lasting
from a few minutes up to an entire period.

Conti…..
Informal cooperative learning
incorporates group learning with passive
teaching by drawing attention to material
through small groups throughout the
lesson or by discussion at the end of a
lesson.
These groups are often temporary and
can change from lesson to lesson

Group based learning
• In group-based cooperative learning, these peer groups
gather together over the long to develop and contribute to
one another’s knowledge mastery on a topic by regularly
discussing material, encouraging one another, and
supporting the academic and personal success of group
members.
• Base group learning is effective for learning complex
subject matter over the course or semester and establishes
caring, supportive peer relationships, which in turn
motivates and strengthens the student’s commitment to the
group’s education while increasing self-esteem and self-
worth.

Effective Cooperative Learning Groups
5 Elements
1. Positive Interdependence
2. Individual and group Accountability
3. Face-To-Face Interaction
4. Interpersonal and small group skills
5. Group Processing(reflection)

Positive Interdependence
 Task and goals are clearly defined
 Efforts of each team member benefits the individual as well
as the group
 Commitment made to both personal as well as group
success
 Students must fully participate and put forth effort within
their group
 Each group member has a task/role/responsibility therefore
must believe that they are responsible for their learning and
that of their group.

Individual and Group
Accountability
 Each group member will be held accountable for your
share of the work and mastering the learning.
 Each team member must contribute to the group as a
whole
 Each team member is accountable for helping the group to
reach its goals
 Each student must demonstrate mastery of the content
being studied

Face-To-Face Interaction
• Promote one another success by sharing resources
• Encourage, help, and applaud each other effort’s
• Support one another academically and personally
• Explain how to solve problems
• Teach each other
• Check’s for one another understanding
• Discuss concept being learned
• Connect present with past learning
• Foster the group mutual goal

Interpersonal and small group skills
 Each team member must:
• Be motivated
• Provide effective leadership
• Be able to make decisions
• Be able to build trusts
• Be able to communicate
• Be able to manage conflict

Group processing(reflection)
 Students :
• Communicate openly, freely, respectfully discussing their
concern
• Maintain effective working relationship
• Describe what member actions are helpful
• Make decisions about behaviours to
continue/change/discontinue
• Process status of goal achievement and accomplishment

Techniques
Jigsaw
Think-Pair-Share
Three-Step Interview
Round Robin Brainstorming
Three-minute Review
Numbered Heads
Book Ends

Jigsaw
• Group students into sets of five. Assign unique
information to learn to each group member. After
reading the material, instruct group members to
take turns teaching their material to their
teammates.

Think-Pair-Share
• Pose a question, and ask students to think about
its answer. Instruct students to pair off and take
turns explaining their answers to each other.

• This is a four-step discussion strategy that
incorporates wait time and aspects of cooperative
learning. Students (and teachers) learn to LISTEN
while a question is posed, THINK (without raising
hands) of a response, PAIR with a neighbor to discuss
responses, and SHARE their responses with the
whole class. Time limits and transition cues help
discussion move smoothly. Students are able to
rehearse responses mentally and verbally, and all
students have an opportunity to talk. Both students
and teachers have increased opportunities to think
and become involved in group discussion. (Lyman)

Three-Step Interview
• Group students into pairs. In step one, ask
individuals to interview their partners. In step
two, ask partners to reverse roles. In step three,
select a few students to explain their partners’
answer to the entire class.

• This involves structured group activity with students.
Using interviews/listening techniques that have been
modeled; one student interviews another about an
announced topic. "en time is up, students switch roles
as interviewer and interviewee. Pairs then join to form
groups of four. Students take turns introducing their
pair partners and sharing what the pair partners had to
say. This structure can be used as a team builder, and
also for opinion questions, predicting, evaluation,
sharing book reports, etc. (Kagan)

Round Robin Brainstorming
•Group students into sets of four or five each, and instruct
each group to appoint a recorder. Pose a question having
several answers. Have group members think silently about
responses and then take turns sharing their ideas with the
others in the group. Ask group members not to criticize one
another's responses. Instruct the recorder to write down the
ideas. After a few minutes, stop the discussions, and select a
member of each group to read the recorder’s list aloud.

• Roundtable can be used for brainstorming, reviewing, or
practicing while also serving as a team builder. Sequential form:
• Students sit in teams of 3 or more, with one piece of paper and
one pencil. The teacher asks a question which has multiple
answers. Students take turns writing one answer on the paper,
then passing the paper and pencil clockwise to the next person.
When time is called, teams with the most correct answers are
recognized. Teams reflect on their strategies and consider
ways they could improve. Simultaneous form: Each student
starts a piece of paper, writes one answer, and passes it, so
several papers are moving at once. (Kagan)

Three-minute Review
• Pause during or at the end of a lecture or discussion.
Ask students to work with partners to summarize the
lecture or discussion. After three minutes, call on a
few students to share their group’s summary with
the class.

Numbered Heads
• Group students into sets of four, and number the
members of each group one through four. Give the
groups questions to answer. Ask each group to
decide upon an answer, and call on all persons with
a certain number to take turns reporting to the class.

• This structure is useful for quickly reviewing objective
material in a fun way. The students in each team are
numbered (each team might have 4 students
numbered 1, 2, 3, 4). Students coach each other on
material to be mastered. Teachers pose a question
and call a number. Only the students with that number
are eligible to answer and earn points for their team,
building both individual accountability and positive
interdependence. This may be done with only one
student in the class responding (sequential form), or
with all the numbers, 3's for instance, responding
using an Every Pupil Response technique such as
cards or hand signals (simultaneous form). (Kagan)

Book Ends
• Ask students to pair up. Give them a topic, and tell
them to spend a couple of minutes deciding how to
teach that topic to their partners. After giving
participants time to think, invite them to take turns
teaching the topic to their partners.

Benefits of co-operative
learning

Cooperative Learning Benefits
Cooperative Learning teaching techniques facilitate learning
and memory by:
• Ensuring attention through active student participation
• Adding meaning and relevance to the material
• Enabling students to learn from “modeling” or through
observation of others
• Students of all ability levels show higher academic
achievement when taught using cooperative learning
techniques as opposed to traditional techniques.
• Encouraging student participation through expectation of
rewards - desire to avoid possible punishments

Advantages and
Disadvantages of cooperative
learning

Advantages
• It has been shown to have a positive
effect on student learning when
compared to individual or competitive
conditions
• It has the potential to produce a level of
engagement that other forms of learning
cannot
• Students may explain things better to
another student than a teacher to a class.
Students learn how to teach one another
and explain material in their own words
• Questions are more likely to be asked
and answered in a group setting
Disadvantages
• A burden is making the students
responsible for each other’s learning
apart from themselves
• One study showed that in groups of
mixed ability, low-achieving students
become passive and do not focus on the
task
• Depending on an individual’s
motivation and interest on a particular
subject that will determine how well
they would learn
• Low achiver become Puzzled Because
of so many questions

• Maureen and keri (2002)
• examined the effect of a cooperative learning programs on
the social acceptance of children with moderate to severe
intellectual disabilities by young children without
disabilities.
• Sample size was 51 MMR. Random sampling method was
taken for the selection of the sample. Children without
disabilities were assigned to a cooperative learning
programme or a social contact programme, which are taken
as the control group.
• The result of the study indicated that the cooperative
learning treatments resulted In positive changes in several
indices in the social acceptance of the children with
moderate and severe intellectual disabilities by their peers
without disabilities.

 Robert Slavin (1994)
 Student Team Learning -Slavin defines cooperative learning as
“instructional programs in which students work in small groups to
help one another master academic content.
Through his review of the literature on cooperative learning, Slavin
identifies three concepts that are fundamental to all cooperative
learning/Student Team Learning techniques:
1. Students are rewarded as a team but are graded individually.
2. The team’s success is not conditionally based on individual
performance of one student. All students must help each other to
achieve learning goals.
3. All students are expected to improve based on their own previous
performance, thus ensuring all students are challenged to do their best.

Spencer Kagan (1989)
• Recommend that teachers use the “structural approach” to
cooperative learning, which involves “content-free ways of
organizing social interaction in the classroom.
• The strategy of cooperative learning was developed as a
means to reduce competition in American schools, which
James Coleman (1959) identified as a negative component
of the education system. Coleman suggests that instead of
encouraging competition in the academic setting, “which
effectively impedes the process of education,” schools
should introduce a more collaborative approach to teaching.

Cooperative Learning in Special Education

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